19 Aug 2011

Here is a tutorial I've been working on for anyone that is new to photo editing. I wanted to show you two very easy ways to dramatically enhance the colours, contrast and light balance in your photos. I work in Photoshop, but I think that the methods I show would be fairly similar in other photo editing software.

So, if you look at the image above, you can see how much you can improve photos that come out a bit dull and dark, but this is also a great way to make good shots stand out even more!

I am going to use this photo to show you the technique.

The first thing I always do with a new photo is to adjust the Levels. You can find the levels under Image/Adjustments/Levels, or press ctrl+L, or apple+L on macs.

When you have opened the Levels window you'll see this black "mountain". Drag the little black marker and the little white marker so that they are right at the start and the end of the "mountain". Like this:

Click OK. Now you have adjusted the light/dark balance and contrast of the photo!

Now we are going to enhance the contrast further and make the colours really pop. This will be done in the Layers panel, it's usually situated at the bottom right corner of your screen, if not go to Windows/Layers.

Now you're gonna copy the Background layer, do that by grabbing hold of it and dragging it to the "Create a new layer" icon (bottom right of your layers panel).

When you have your new layer, click on the menu where it says "Normal" and change it to "Screen".

Copy another layer by doing the same thing - drag the Background layer to the same icon again - and change this one to "Soft Light".

Now adjust the opacity of your two layers. I usually set the Screen one to about 30% and the Soft Light to 80%. But this is up to you to decide when the photo looks best. Sometimes if a photo is very dark I put the Screen layer's opacity up.

ok lovely lady! i think i will be back to stalk this particular post because I've been playing with photoshop a lot and use the curves most the time but this is just great info for even the photoshop pros:) xoxo gorgeous photos all the time....i need to get to a farmers market to take pretty fruit pics...enjoy the weekend

OMG! Thank you so much for this tutorial! I've been dying to learn more about photoshop and want my photos to look better without spending a ridiculous amount of time on them. This is amazing and I can't wait to try it out!

This tutorial really opened the world of photoshop to me. It's not as intimidating as it seems now, and I was even able to experiment a little on my own. I tried your instructions on a couple of pictures today and they turned out great! Thank you! And I will definitely be on the lookout for more tutorials you have in the future!

I find photoshop so confusing...thanks for the tutorial, the pictures help so much! Definitely pinning this! Really enjoying reading your blog and look forward to all your future posts! I am one of your new loyal followers! When you have a chance come on by and check out my blog (and make sure to say hi!). If you like my blog, I would love it if you would follow me back! Cath @ Home is Where my Heart is: http://cathhasablog.blogspot.com/

Thanks! I use Photoscape (very basic editing program - fewer options than Photoshop, but quicker and less complicated when you don't need to do much) when editing most of the photos I take for my blog. I don't have a nice camera or anything (our digital is 10 years old!) so I'm not worried about making them artist-quality, y'know?

But the same basic concept works even in that, by clicking the auto-contrast and auto-level buttons. Sometimes just that can make a huge improvement!

Hi there, I draw most of my illustrations by hand, then I scan them in and put them together with text or whatever the design might be in the computer. Sometimes I draw with the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator.

Thank you for your blog! My wedding photos weren't edited at all and I am very new to photoshop. I was wondering is there a way to process all my wedding photos with this method at once? I'm using elements 10. Thank you for your post, you've made my wedding photos truly pop!

I am newbie in Photoshop and designing world. But my company has 30 years of experience. So i feel so lucky as a new comer i have found your stunning creation, tutorial by which i can able to explore me. Admittedly it helps ma a lot. Plenty Amazing !!! :)

Just came across your informative tutorial on Pinterest and tried working through the steps. As I am a total newbie to Photoshop Elements--and in spite of your great directions--I found myself a bit befuddled. Any chance you'll do some video tutorials for the more inept among us?

Want To Borrow My Images?

You may use my photographs on your non-commercial website/blog, on the condition that you give me full credit and link back to this blog. This excludes all of my pattern and graphic design images, please contact me on lisaedoff [at] gmail [dot] com before using them on your site. Thank you!